BLAW10001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Australasian Legal Information Institute
14 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Legislation as a source of Law
1. Historical origins of Australian law
•Western Europeans arrived and brought English legal system with them
•English law became the general law of Australia, almost displacing Indigenous law
•Two main streams of Western jurisprudence:
-Roman law (or civil law) - lots of legislation, limited case law from judges
-English law (or common law) - judges help to develop precedents often
2. Some aspects of the nature of law
•Law is dynamic - Australian law has developed from English law
•Legal systems tend to retain basic principles and characterises
3. Law-making bodies in Australia
•Law-making bodies
-The courts
-Legislatures and local government councils
•Many legislatures
-the Commonwealth
-States
-Self-governing territories
•Commonwealth and state legislatures can also be referred to as parliaments
•Bi-cameral system (upper and lower house of parliament)
•Uni-cameral (only one house)
4. Identifying legislation
•Law made by a legislature is called ‘legislation’ or ‘statutory law’ or an ‘Act of Parliament’
•Each act has a tile related to content and a year that the piece of legislation came into effect.
Brackets say name of legislature, where it applies
Document Summary
Roman law (or civil law) - lots of legislation, limited case law from judges. Legislatures and local government councils: many legislatures. Self-governing territories: commonwealth and state legislatures can also be referred to as parliaments, bi-cameral system (upper and lower house of parliament, uni-cameral (only one house) 4: law made by a legislature is called legislation" or statutory law" or an act of parliament", each act has a tile related to content and a year that the piece of legislation came into effect. Brackets say name of legislature, where it applies: law making powers of australian legislatures, each state and territory legislatures has a general legislative power to make law for peace, order and good government . Power limited to particular territory: constitution details rules of law-making, commonwealth government has less general legislative power than the state and territory governments, some powers exclusive to the commonwealth parliament while others are shared with states:
